DOE Announces $50 Million in Funding for New Technologies and Solar Innovation

Published on September 25, 2015

To continue driving down solar PV costs beyond the current SunShot goals, the Energy Department today announced $20 million available to further improve PV module performance, reliability, and manufacturability, while also advancing next generation PV concepts. In addition to typical multiyear research projects, this funding opportunity includes a topic area dedicated to small, single-year projects aimed at demonstrating the potential for expanded work in cutting-edge PV research. This funding opportunity aims to reach solar PV costs by the year 2030 that are one-half to one-third of the original SunShot goals, in order to support widespread deployment of PV.

To accelerate the current growth trajectory of solar energy in America, a wide variety of products and services are needed to address and improve industry operations up and down the value chain. The Department is announcing $30 million to support the development of new solar tools, technologies, and services that can swiftly enter the solar marketplace and directly address SunShot goals. This funding opportunity is meant to develop products and services that will help the solar industry to increase system value while reducing hardware costs, improve business operational efficiency, broaden the investor pool for project development, develop products leveraging new and emerging technologies, streamline regulatory processes, and more.

Broadly, these Energy Department investments support state-of-the-art products, solutions, and technology advancements that will increase solar energy system performance and efficiency and drive down costs. The Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national effort that aggressively drives innovation to make solar energy fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources by the end of the decade.